Budget blues once again

Steve Williams

Sunday

May 16, 2010 at 7:07 AMMay 25, 2010 at 7:09 AM

Arnold Schwarzenegger did what he just about had to this week in announcing his new budget: Ask for deep cuts in everything to try and overcome the latest predicted deficit for California, $18.6 billion to $22 billion through fiscal 2010-11, depending on how much is held in reserve.

He called for the deepest cuts to date on social welfare and health programs for the needy. He even proposed eliminating the state's main welfare program, which would affect 1.4 million people.

Of course any spirit of compromise between Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature is a pipe dream. Democrats say they have done enough in recent years by cutting billions of dollars from state programs. Republicans say more cost-cutting is the only way to deal with the state's declining revenue. They refuse to raise taxes again, after the Legislature imposed a series of temporary tax increases last year. That, of course, is the only good news out of this; at least Republicans understand that raising taxes in this economy is not only crazy, but suicidal.

Years of overly optimistic revenue and savings projections perpetuated the misguided notion, at least on the left, that California's fiscal condition is better than it is. The governor had planned on getting $6.9 billion in new funds from the feds to pay for federal court decisions restricting the state's ability to cut spending and underfunded federal mandates. California has received less than $3 billion of that. An expected $140 million of revenue from offshore oil drilling evaporated following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, when the governor killed the tentative compromise between environmentalists and Texas oil interests.

For about as long as Democrats have controlled the state Legislature — and unions have controlled the Democrats — there has been a sense that one of these days the chickens hatched by government profligacy will come home to roost. This, finally, may be the day, proving once again that the political class invariably refuses to act until after the crisis has emerged.

An awful lot of people are going to be damaged by California's looming financial meltdown, and the hurt won't be lessened by the knowledge that political sanity in Sacramento could have avoided much of the mess.

Why do we keep electing these people?

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